Rankings

1. Nextiva - My Top recommendation, Won the Best Business Class VoIP Provider, Best Customer Support,  Product of the Year, and has all of the features without the complications.  VOIP that is designed for small businesses, internet business, and a perfect e-commerce phone system that offers top services at very affordable prices.  You no longer have to spend an arm-and-a-leg to have a business-class phone system.  Best of all these features are easy to use and manage; No Contracts (I hate those) – click on the button below for a special introductory trial rate.

2. Intercall - Features apps for both the Blackberry and the iPhone.  This company was launched in 2006, and offers reliable and user-friendly communication tools to help you focus on your business, not worry about your communication channels.

3. MetroFax one of the Internet’s best faxing solutions allows you to receive 1,000 included pages with each month of service — more than most online fax providers. No long-term subscriber commitments, local and toll-free fax numbers, faxing that works with e-mail programs, virtually every Windows application, or as software-free Web-based service with the new MetroFax Dashboard.

This is a great chance to save 10% with this coupon.  Give it a try.

Save Now! 10% off your order with GoDaddy.com!

The great part of this is that both Amazon and you benefit from your increased sales, so everyone wins. The customer doesn’t have to pay a higher price, and gets all the benefits of using Amazon to purchase their products – the low prices, and promise of security. Let’s look a bit closer at how you can get started with the program and start making money.

To use the program, you have to sign up on the Amazon Affiliate Website – you can log in using your Amazon account, or create a new one (they’re free), and the sign up. You have to give them a bit of personal information, but this is simply because they need a way to contact you to pay you, and also for keeping track of tax related information.

It’s worth mentioning that because of tax laws, residents of North Carolina are currently prohibited from signing up.)

Once you sign up, you will see a variety of options for posting links on your site. You can post a plain text link to a product and get credit for the sale, because Amazon tracks where the customer comes from, and credits you for that sale. You can post widgets which detail the features of certain products. They have customizable widgets which allow you to put a selection of products into different flash animations, and display those on your site.

You can also create a store, and embed it on your site using an iframe. You have quite a bit of customizability, and can choose categories and products to go in your custom store. This is a great way to show off a variety of product recommendations, and in a way that can it can be blended with the rest of your store.

The process of getting paid is fairly straightforward. You have to have at least $10 (US) in your account to get paid. You can be paid in an Amazon Gift Card, or have the money direct deposited into your bank account. You have to go into your account and request a payment whenever you are ready and meet the requirements.

How much money you earn off of each product sale depends. There are several different options you can choose for how much you get paid. The most common one is adjusted by how many products you sell. You start off earning 4% for each item, and work your way up a scale. When you’ve sold enough items, you can earn up to 15%. There is also an option to earn a solid 4%, regardless of number of items sold, but obviously that doesn’t pay as well (or at least not any worse.)

Lastly, one of the great features of this program is that it’s free. You have absolutely no cost, and you only earn money. The Amazon Affiliate program is a great way for website owners to earn money off of referred product sales, without ever having to incur cost or risk – you can only benefit from trying this program.

First you have to decide what you’re going to sell, then have your web-site built or build it yourself. There are a lot of companies that offer to develop your store with you, they offer advice and support on how to develop it. They also have the design tools to allow you to adapt your store to your own colors, design and preferences. This also means you don’t have to pay for the software yourself, saving you money.

What to Know Before You Set-Up a Store

When you are setting up your own website you need to ensure that the server host has an SSL certificate. This means that you will be a secure site for money/credit card transactions. Making sure that your finished site and shop will have an SSL certificate will save you time and possibly the need to move your site to a host with an SSL certificate.

You need to have researched the host server to ascertain that they will have the bandwidth available to you to ensure speedy upload/download of product pictures and the ease of financial transactions. No customer will stay on your site if it takes too long to load regardless of how good the site design or the product you are selling.

Setting up Your Online Store

There are plenty of companies to choose from so do your research well. Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, DotNetNuke, Artisteer and Blogger are the main design sites that you will come across. They all allow you develop your site your way with no need to learn any programming languages or extra computer skills. They take care of all the Photoshop, CSS, XHTML and other computer skills that you would otherwise need to learn.

With the design of the site and store taken care of you will now need to consider the “how” of running your store. There are again a lot of companies to choose from, again good research is vital. Flyingcart, Createastore and freewebstore are three that you will come across. These companies will help design the actual shop and virtual shopping cart that you will need.

Flyingcart

Membership here costs from $14.99/month to $59.99/month depending upon the package that you go for. Their site allows you to upload and edit images, descriptions and prices of your product. This enables your customers to pay via Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, or PayPal into your own PayPal Business account and/or a Google Checkout seller’s account. They for a small fee will set-up a PayPal Business account and/or a Google Checkout seller’s account for you.

Creatastore

This is a great choice if your shop or product line is small, if it is below 50 items it is a free service. For a larger product line it is from $10 to $50 a month. They also offer a great flexibility on the design of your online store, an inventory set-up online and the calculation of taxes based rate in the area you are based in. They also offer remote store management and notification of orders via email.

Freewebstore

This company offers to assist in the design of your store if don’t already have one. They give you complete control of the management of the site by remote, upload/download of images of product, editing of the site and they also provide secure payment methods via PayPal, Google Checkout, WorldPay and Nochex.

They offer several packages; under 15 items it is free and has no email support, 50 items is $10 a month with email support, 150 items is $20 a month with email support, 300 items is $27 a month with email support and domain name, unlimited items is $46 a month with email support and domain name.

To further your knowledge in the features this website offers, you will have to know more details on the subject. As far as the simple management feature goes, you will be able to manage and edit any content included in your store by just simply logging into your Shopify account. Editing the content in your store is simple and easy.

As far as making your experience with accepting payments from your customers a-lot easier, Shopify eliminates all of the complicated steps so all you are left with is one positive selling experience. They use more than 50 different payment sites (like Paypal) to make sure that any store you run will be able to accept your customer’s major credit cards.

The feature of providing you with your own store front is pretty self explanatory. They basically provide you with your own business site to sell all of your products on. There is limitless customization that comes with the storefront. They even allow you to upload your own pictures as well as many other features with your storefront.

Setting up your online store with Shopify is made extremely easy and simple. You will receive many different features depending on the package you choose. Shopify is currently offering a 30-day free trial for anyone who would like to give it a try before purchasing a plan. The initial set up is not that hard to figure out, if you have any trouble you can always contact their customer support for further assistance.

Shopify offers five different package offers, and all of their packages are to be paid for each month by the user. What is included in your plan depends on which package you decide to purchase. The Shopify website explains each of their plans in full detail on their website. Prices range from $24 a month to $699, this depends on your specific needs or wants for your business.

Selling items on Shopify is really quite simple. Shopify allows it’s sellers to create their own discount codes, also known as coupons. However, these coupons are only available to the users who choose a plan that is $59 or higher per month.

Shopify requires you to have one of their many supported payment gateways in order to accept payments from customers. Adding items to your website isn’t hard at all, you simply just click on the ‘Products’ page, title your product, add prices, item cost, weight of the item (for shipping purposes, add any other specs you want mentioned about your product and you’re done!

Getting paid by Shopify is really quite simple. They pay you through direct payment through many payment sites of your choice. Here is a short list of some of their payment processors, Paypal, Paysecure, Wirecard, InstaPAY, Linkpoint and many others. You can also choose to receive checks, money orders, or even direct bank transfers if you do not have a valid account with any direct payment site.

Shopify mainly hosts your site for you as long as you pay them. This saves a-lot of trouble when it comes to running your own business. Of course you will have to keep up with maintaining your shop, this isn’t the type of this you just mess with once then sit back and hope the money rolls in. You must keep up with your products, advertise your shop and add new products as needed.

All in all, Shopify will help a-lot when it comes to running your own online business. With all of the features they offer it’s no wonder that more and more online business users run their shops through their helpful service. So, why not give it a try, what are you waiting for?

There are websites that will help you design an online store that is unique to you and your business type. They also make sure that your business is seen by all the major search engines, and that’s what you want. The bigger the audience, the bigger the chance of someone staying on your e-commerce site and making a purchase. While you are in the process of developing your online store, find a site that offers the maximum amount of services that you will need.

If you would like your customers to have the convenience of making a purchase by credit or debit card you will need a merchant account. Find one that has no application fees. Keep it simple. Having a domain name is a must. In order for people to find you they have to know who you are. Domain names can be purchased or free depending on the service that the domain name site offers.

You also need some type of security feature so that your customer will feel safe in doing transactions in your store. This requires the purchase of an SSL certificate, preferrably one that is free shared 256-bit encrypted. Again, depending on the service site your certificate can be purchased at a discount.

Custom design your store by browzing through a variety of templates until you find one that suits the theme and concept of your business. You want attractive colors, fonts and graphics that will catch the attention of your site visitors. There are websites that offer a great selection of templates through their design galleries. Some may offer free templates just by you creating an account with them. They will help you install the template into your store. In fact, search diligently and you will find all the design tools you need to have a very professional and eye-catching online store.

This is where marketing becomes extremely important because you want lots of traffic drawn to your store just as if it were brick and mortar with people coming in and out all day long! So, get the most out of your advertising dollars by getting a Cost Per Click and Search Engine Optimization service. This all-in-one service really cuts out the guess work involved in promoting your e-commerce online store.

In addition to finding the right template for your site, you also want to be able to add and edit your products. There are tools that will help your organize your products quite easily. You can upload your product images without having to worry about resizing them because the uploading tool does that for you. It allows you to describe your products and edit your descriptions as needed. Management of your inventory can be done with hardly any effort on your part because an inventory editor tool keeps track of all your inventory.

As a part of your shopping cart feature, your order screen can let your customers write additional comments or specifications about their order during checkout time. This tool can help you keep track of your shipped, paid for and delivered items. You can get a SKU for each of your products which includes stock, pricing and a total price breakdown. This particular tool will also allow you to see which customer placed an order and all the detailed information concerning the order with complete fraud detection in case there is any confusion.

As an added feature to your online store you can provide e-commerce solutions to your customers who would like to develop their own professional store. This is called reselling.

So, there you have it. Everything at your fingertips to ensure the success of your e-commerce online store.

Online business owners have a wide range of options to consider when selecting a web host. However, there are THREE key considerations to be made. These are:

Reliability and quality of the web hosting service

Presence of cPanel with Fantistico, mySQL, and PHP

Availability of an e – commerce shopping cart and SSL

Reliability and quality of the web hosting service

The first consideration to be made is the reliability and quality of the service. Web hosting providers are evaluated on issues such as network stability, backup of the website and provision of technical support services. Network stability means that the web site should be available online twenty four hours a day. This is important for sales, since customers and potential income can be lost due to error messages indicating that the website has crashed.

Automatic back up of the website should be included to allow for safety of the sites contents on a continual basis. This is the loss prevention manager. One can also argue that the provision of a 24 hour technical support system is perhaps one of the most critical factors related to reliability.

Customer ratings and reviews are two great sources of information about the reliability and quality of web hosting services.

Presence of cPanel with fantistico and PHP

The second factor is the presence of cPanel. cPanel or control panel supports many operating systems. Its interface allows web site owners to carry out numerous administrative functions. cPanel allows site owners to upload files to the website; set up email accounts and autoresponders; add subscription forms and images and perform quick and automatic blog installation. Fantastico is therefore a key component of a good cPanel, since it is necessary for installation of the web platforms such as B2evolution, WordPress and Joomla.

PHP is another component to look for when selecting a web host. PHP is a scripting language in programming. This script or software language allows website owners to carry out functions like adding feedback forms, guestbooks, message boards and stat counters to web sites. This allows for greater and more effective interaction with customers.

Availability of an e-commerce shopping cart with SSL

Thirdly, a secure e-commerce shopping cart is an absolutely necessity for an online business store. A shopping cart allows customers to easily process online transactions. The cart should be able to accept payments by credit card merchants such as Visa and Mastercard, as well as other services such as PayPal.

The hosting service should therefore provide SSL for the security of online purchases. SSL is a security feature which encrypts data online and protects transfers of information on the internet. Some web hosts also provide built in additional shopping cart services such as analytic reports, shipping rates, surveys and forms to assess customer satisfaction. The final choice depends on the needs of the business owner.

E-Commerce allows orders and shopping to be placed by the customer through a website. Any company that chooses to go the e-commerce route has the opportunity to expand its market on global scale. The power of electronic commerce industry has yet to be discovered in its entirety, which leaves room for more growth and expansion.

Before going online to run your business, a marketing plan needs to be put in place. Unfortunately offline marketing and online marketing are not the same, though they do have some similarities. The personal touch and face to face contact is somewhat challenging to achieve on the internet, but it can be done. Through the usage of Social Media, the personal side of dealing with customers can be attained. Adapting to a different type of marketing strategy can be unsettling, so inquire and advisor if help is needed to get started.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will also be crucial to a successful e-commerce business. SEO is a strategy that is used to get a website into the search engines. There are tons of people searching online everyday for the many different products. By getting good search engine rankings in the niche of the electronic commerce business, increase of sales is definite. SEO is also important for the longevity of the business that chooses to go online. By having good rankings for certain keywords, it guarantees a flow of daily customers.

After the marketing plan is established it is time for the website. The website for any electronic commerce website is very important. This is the place where the customers make their purchases on the products that are available. Studies have shown that websites that are simple and not cluttered have a better conversion rate of sales. The e-commerce website should also be easy to navigate and understand. Web designers are best to consult if knowledge in this aspect is not available. But having to call the web designer for the smallest changes to a website is one of the drawbacks of hiring a website designer.

Web hosting is another important factor to include when starting an e-commerce website. Web hosting is simply an opportunity to purchase space on the web. There are many web-hosting services to choose from. Some services provide e-commerce packages specifically designed for a business that is transitioning to an e-commerce style of business. There are hosting services that will provide a business with shopping cart software.

The software is designed to track all orders and where they are going. It also has features that will calculate the amount of revenue generated on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis. This is a great tool to have that will automate the entire process of customers purchasing products.

PayPal has been one of the most common payment processors for e-commerce businesses. It has proved itself to be safe and reliable. However there are also many other companies to choose from. If all the tools have been set up properly, any e-commerce business can have great success. It can truly run like a well oiled engine. E-commerce has been known to save many corporations time and money. It eliminates having more employees’, and also allows computers and robots to take the place of humans.

An IT consultant is an investment that is necessary to help protect and e-commerce website from hackers. It is vital that hackers have no opportunity to access the information that has been placed on the payment processors from customers.

Protecting the identity of the company and both the customers is crucial if the e-commerce website it to have returning customers. Many people are still having a hard time trusting e-commerce sites with personal information. Make sure the protection of the site is taken care; this ensures the customers trust with your business.

As an entrepreneur in e-commerce the stakes are just getting better and better; and for you to be really successful you must offer your customers more flexibility as to how they pay for their online purchases and that is in your e-commerce website.

The current study reveals that online stores that uses three or more additional payment options apart from the use of credit card recorded higher sales and more conversion rates than those who only offered a single payment option apart from credit cards.

This simply implies that the more payment option you offer on your online store, the higher your sales and conversion rates which variably means you will make more money. Here are some of the online payment options you can offer in your online store.

Credit card payments have been the dominant forms of payments online. The use of credit cards as payment option is still a popular way of paying for goods and services online. You will only be able to use this payment option, MasterCard, Discover, Amex, Visa Card and more on your e-commerce site after you have register as an online merchant.

How to register is quite simple. Just register for an online merchant account with your local bank. Note it that you will have to register online merchant accounts with two separate banks before you can be eligible to process payment from all major credit cards in your e-commerce website. The major reason for this is that many of the banks only deal with some of the credit cards involved.

In another way, you can register an online merchant account through a third party merchant account provider. Some of them are Moneris, Beanstream, InternetSecure or PSiGate.

The benefits of registering through a third party merchant account provider is that you will be free from making any security deposits as required by banks. They set up with a third party merchant account provider are very fast and are flexible, enough to allow for bundled e-commerce service packages which will include internet gateway needed for credit card processing which is equivalent to POS terminal with a shopping cart.

Where the disadvantage is, is the cost. Their discount fee is usually high compared to when you register your online merchant account with your local bank.

At whatever place you choose to get your online merchant account, you will still need to get an internet gateway service. This gateway helps to verify information, transfers requests and authorizes credit cards use in real time. The four aforementioned companies offer these credit card processing services too, but they are quite a number of companies that do too like PayPal and Moneybookers.

PayPal as become an all-in-one online payment solution. With their current website payment standard program, they let online merchant accept Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express credit card payments and more so bank transfers and offer PayPal as well. This offer is available to merchants with no monthly fees, setup or cancellation fees. They will only charge you a fee of 1.9 to 2.9 percent of all transactions with 30 percent per order, depending on your company’s sales volume.

With PayPal, you can also upgrade from the Website Payment Standard to Website Payments Pro, where your customers can check out right on your site rather than going through PayPal. This offer is currently available for U.S. citizens.

Option 3 – Moneybrookers

Just like PayPal, Moneybrookers also offer an all-in-one online payment solution. With an addition of a API code provided by them on your e-commerce website, you can immediately process credit card payments from all major credit cards straight to your e-commerce website without delay. You can also link your Moneybrooker account directly with any of your local bank account through the SWIFT network.

How to choose an online payment service provider.

Here are some questions you need to ask yourself when deciding on picking an online payment service provider.

1. Do they provide secured payment processing? As an online merchant one thing you should consider before choosing a payment service provider is are they offering secure payment methods which enable your online shoppers to make purchases through your site safely and securely without any worry of fraud, identity theft or other security breaches.

2. What customer service platforms do they offer? It’s important to select a provider that answers all your inquiries and questions in a timely, polite, and comprehensive manner.

3. Does the payment gateway support your shopping cart? While a good, reputable shopping cart should be able to support a myriad of shopping carts, it’s important to make sure it’s compatible with your particular shopping cart before you sign up with the payment gateway.

4. How much do they charge? Make sure you do your homework to find out of the provider offers competitive pricing and inquire about any extra, possibly hidden

fees.

5. Do they offer dispute resolution?If there is a dispute between you and a buyer, does the payment services provider offer a dispute resolution solution to help solve the issue?

6. Are they PCI-Compliant? Look for a provider that is PCI-compliant and has adhered to such guidelines and offers a secure environment to store and transmit the payment information of your customers.

7. What types of reporting do they offer?Before you sign with a provider, have them offer a demo or show samples what types of reporting they offer, whether it’s batch reporting or reports in real-time.

No matter what type of software is used the shopping cart concept is basically the same. There may be a few extras for store-building purposes but most operate on the same baseline idea. A shopping cart acts as an integration feature on the website. This feature allows a customer to pick and choose among the products for sale while keeping track of what they want.

At the end of their shopping they can then purchase everything in the cart at one time instead of the manner in which online purchases used to be made. Before this technology people had to use clumsy html forms which became cumbersome to navigate when they purchased many objects.

The typical shopping cart will have similar features and come in a variety of programming languages and styles. Modern shopping cart software will almost always include a database for storing information on the details of a product, order information, and customer data. This is beneficial for both the store owner and the customer as it allows for a repeat customer to quickly find items they like using a simple search function.

The store owner benefits because they can easily track what individual customers want from their store and compare the overall sales. This helps them to know which items should be kept in stock in what amount.

Beyond the database most shopping carts include a storefront display screen and an administrative area as well. The storefront is important for attracting customers. This is the area wherein products are actively displayed on screen. This includes the ability to search for products, links, and products pages. The administration area is for the store owner. This section allows the owner to implement changes to the site, update software in some cases, and change what products will appear. This area is also where shipping, payment processing, and order changes are made.

These shopping carts utilize many similar functions and the modern cart running on windows will often utilize one of two database types. These types are the Microsoft SQL or Microsoft Access Database. The differences are basically in utility as they are often the same price to purchase. The Microsoft SQL is designed for e-commerce but costs more to run overall and generally needs a greater level of expertise to use properly.

Microsoft Access Database is a simpler program but it is not designed for commerce. It can be used well for small to medium sized online businesses, however. The only issue is that when several shoppers access the database simultaneously it may cause the site to slow down. This is rarely an issue, however, as stores of this type usually do not have many simultaneous searches. Shopping cart software also has the capacity to utilize many other database types, including those that work on other operating system platforms such as Linux.

The important information necessary for understanding how e-commerce shopping carts to work will vary. Different stores have different needs and as such they need different carts. A simple shopping cart is one that does nothing but accept someone’s credit or debit card information without the need for any further information or tracking.

The modern nature of online commerce dictates a more advanced software platform. Shopping carts in this technological era need to be completely integrated into the site and act as its heart. The need for detailed customer information, inventory distribution and annotation, and sales receipts is best resolved with a highly advanced shopping cart system.